I hadn't really planned anything for dinner tonight, but tomorrow we're having company and I needed to go to the grocery store. So, while walking around the supermarket I asked Shannon what she wanted for dinner. Mangoes happened to be on sale, so we picked up a couple and she said she wanted Madras Curry Penne. I had tried making this for her before with semi-disastrous results, but I decided to try it again. See, there's a particular flavor she has in mind for what this madras curry penne is supposed to taste like. That is, exactly like the one on the menu at Moxies restaurant. Unfortunately, they don't offer a recipe, just the ingredients, and I have to basically make up the rest as I go along.

After grilling her (not literally) for the flavor I'm trying to go for, I start to prepare the sauce. I start toasting cumin and coriander seeds and she starts wondering what's going on. I explain that I'm preparing ingredients for the pasta sauce and she politely explains that I'm doing it all wrong. I do what any decent man would do and tell her that a woman has no place in the kitchen (okay, that's a bit of a dramatization, I ask her to slice a mango) and proceed to make what tastes like spiced vinegar. She approves, but only because I look like I'm about to cry.

I throw the Grilled Lemon Ginger Chicken (which is great for a salad or pasta dish like this, by the way) on the grill, something I know I'm unlikely to screw up, and forget about it for a couple of minutes while I heat up a pan for the Mango Chutney. I make 2 separate batches, 1 simple with nothing but brown sugar and chili flakes for Shannon, and another one with a few more ingredients for myself. The chutney, if I do say so myself, is a very good recipe. It ends up being what tops the pasta in the end, so its flavor is key. For those of you that don't know, chutney is sort of like a spiced relish that is usually made from fruit. It's often used as an accompaniment for meats or with rice or whatever. Think of it like American relish or cranberry sauce.

After it was all said and done, somehow I managed to concoct something that tastes like what I was going for. She said the sauce was a bit tart, but when all of the elements were combined it was almost perfect. Perhaps this is by fluke or perhaps it's because I'm becoming more familiar with these spices in the kitchen. It's about time, really. When I first met Shannon I had the opportunity to introduce her to a wide variety of new flavors. I cooked her dinner after dinner of things she'd never had before; like pesto, roasted red peppers, and so on. The first thing she introduced me to was curry. She pulled a recipe off the internet and we picked up the ingredients and made curried chicken. It was delicious, she said it was perfect and I've been craving it ever since. I even enjoy the smell of curry as it seeps out of my pores like a sweet ginger deodorant, but that's probably a little too much information.

I came across a link entitled The Truth about Peanut Sauce and had to read it. It had an aura of mystery, you see. What could the truth be? The mystery is quickly solved in the first paragraph: the truth is that Thai people don't know what peanut sauce is. What most people think of when it comes to peanut sauce and Thai food is satay. Perfect, because that's exactly what I was looking for in the first place.

So, dinner was Pork Satay with Peanut Thai Sauce. Shannon loved the satay (even had seconds) but I didn't care for it too much, for two reasons. One because of the quality of the curry powder I've bought, it doesn't really do anything for me. It's just a general bland blend of spices that sort of smells like foot. The other reason is because the marinade was very thick and did a good job of sticking to the meat, so once it was cooked some of the marinade had become a texture almost like a paste over the meat. This did help to keep it moist and incredibly tender, but didn't really do anything for me.

I had to substitute the red curry paste for a selection of things that would be in one (dried chili, garlic, coriander, salt and pepper) which probably didn't yield as great of a flavor. By itself I thought the sauce was quite flavorful and unique (the tamarind and coriander especially seemed to go very well with the peanut), but on the satay I thought it was basically like peanut butter. Of course, since the satay is curried it did an excellent job of burning up my taste buds and masking all other flavors, so that stands to reason.

The Thai Cucumber Salad is supposed to help cool the burning sensation and cleanse the palette. I suppose it did. As far as I can tell, this salad serves no greater purpose than that; it's just a simple cucumber salad with vinegar (not particularly flavorful or amazing). I figured I'd use up some of the rice leftover from the Chicken Biryani, so I served the satay on that. Of course, the flavor of the curry and peanut pretty much overwhelmed any flavor from the rice, so I suppose I could've put plain grits on the plate and not noticed any difference.

I bought a package of those tiny bell peppers that turn up in the supermarket every now and then. I wasn't really sure what to do with them, so my first go was just in Salad with Cucumbers. After some research their true purpose has become clear to me: they're meant for stuffing. Of course! It's like a jalapeno popper for the weak. So, since I had an abundance of "crab" leftover from the California Rolls Last Night, I decided to make Crab Stuffed (Mini) Bell Peppers. Unfortunately, I was more wowed by the idea of finding a purpose for these overpriced peppers than the dish itself. I suppose if one had a penchant for both crab and peppers this would be right up their alley, but for the average non-crab, non-pepper fanatic, it is non-exciting.

I went back to the bag of spuds again, which is slowly starting to sprout and must be finished fairly soon. I had a hankerin' (that's what we Albertans call a craving) for caramelized onions, of all things. Potatoes and onions are ideal compliments; why, grandma even planted them next to each other in the garden. Thus, Potatoes with Caramelized Onions was born. It is what it is; having the flavor of sweetened onion and potato (this is a good thing).

Finally, Cauliflower au Gratin. Different and, in some ways, superior to Broccoli au Gratin, this recipe uses cheddar instead of parmesan and emmenthal cheeses. In contrast to the broccoli recipe, I also used skim instead of whole milk this time and, to my surprise, the white sauce actually thickened appropriately. To be honest, I actually think that low-fat cheese might've actually improved the whole lot (less floaty residue from the cheddar).

I've tried to make sushi a small handful of times (4 to be exact, so I suppose a handful for one without thumbs) and I've yet to really get the hang of it. Preparing sushi is an entirely different method of food preparation than what I like to do. It involves actually caring how things are cut to give them uniform shapes, being gentle and patient and there's no oil or butter, so I'm pretty much at a loss.

As you probably recall from my episode with Ahi Tuna, I do not believe that there is such thing as sushi grade fish in my tiny city in Northern Alberta, outside of a sushi bar. So, California Rolls it is. I was a bit worried that Shannon would have a reaction to the imitation crab again, but things seemed to go over well (that is, no trips to the hospital). I have not been historically fond of sushi, but as I acquire a taste for rice vinegar, it's starting to grow on me. I don't think that there was enough vinegar in this recipe to really impart much flavor on the rice, so feel free to adjust it accordingly.

I wish I could offer some tips or suggestions on how to make the whole process easier, but I can't. The instructions I read made little sense until I actually figured out what I was doing. Hindsight is twenty-twenty after that and the whole "tuck and roll" thing seemed to work out a bit better. With only 4 rolls it's hard to really get much experience with the whole process. This was my first time making the inside out rolls. Aside from involving some saran wrap to flip them over, it's basically the same method on a different side. I think I prefer the inside in way of doing things because then I can just pick them up with my hands without getting rice all over my fingers. Chopsticks only work so well, especially when my rolls end up indelibly huge.

After a bunch of feedback on what may have gone wrong with last night's Dhal, I have came to the conclusion that it's because I soaked them for so long in hard water. Apparently the minerals toughen them up and since I soaked them for an extended period of time in my crummy tap water, they became incredibly resistant to any type of cooking method. So now I've learned my lesson! I also have failed to die from salmonella, so today is a pretty good day.

I made Marinated Grilled Quail for dinner tonight. After the bloody chicken ordeal Last Night it was probably a bad idea to cook quail because game fowl is naturally sort of pink when fully cooked. The marinade for this is really nice and simple to make. The honey causes it to burn a bit easily, which is evident in one of the quails, but other than that it's got a nice permeating flavor for the little birds and tastes great with the smoky flavor of the grill.

The pack of quail I picked up was already pre-frozen, so I had to thaw and cook 6. This is more than Shannon and I will likely eat, so I ran some downstairs to my neighbors to eat. As far as I can tell it was accepted fairly well, though one plate went in the fridge for later, which is what I was trying to avoid in the first place. The quail might reheat alright, but the Mushroom Barley Risotto doesn't so much. I seem to recall mentioning this dish before, which means it's clearly one of my favorites.

In fact, it is one of my favorite dishes ever; both for its simplicity and its flavor. I prepared it for some guests on my birthday last year, which is a claim as to how much I enjoy it and how I want to share it with as many people as possible. If you like mushrooms or risotto, this is a dish for you. Of course, this is one of those "the sum of its parts" dishes where the quality of ingredients really matters. Use fresh garlic, great quality mushrooms, real butter and extra virgin olive oil and real chicken stock and you won't be sorry. Unfortunately, I did not have Portobello or crimini mushrooms on hand this time, which really sets this dish apart, but I'm including them in the recipe because they make a huge difference. I cannot give it enough praise, so I'll just explain that it's a beautifully creamy and delicious dish that works with a wide variety of accompaniments or a meal in itself and you won't be disappointed if you make it unless you have an aversion to starch or flavor. Meals like this help me bounce back from unfortunate circumstances like almost killing myself.

What an exciting evening; I don't know what went wrong and I might have killed us both. If I don't post a recap on tomorrow's dinner, that's why — I'm dead. I've never had a disaster with a curry-type dish before. This whole meal went awry! And, by now, you're probably curious of the details.

My main dish, a true meal in itself, was Chicken Biryani. The flavor is very similar to butter chicken, which is a favorite dish of Shannon's, but there is no butter. Despite the lengthy list of ingredients it is actually quite simple to prepare. This is where the first and potentially fatal problem occurred as, either through fault of my own by cooking or by perhaps failing to properly thaw the meat to begin with, the chicken was not cooked. However, only the very center of the meat was bloody – yes, not just pink, but bloody – and the rest seemed to be cooked perfectly. To me this is somewhat of an accomplishment in itself. Chicken biryani is good, but it's not so good I'd risk my life for it like fugu or something. I imagine we'll be fine, but the fact that I undercooked chicken that we actually ate is a bit of a blow to my culinary confidence.

The second foible was the only other dish, which was a simple Dhal. Dhal basically comprises all cooked and curried legumes that yield a creamy texture in my books, but in this case I used yellow split peas. Not too long ago I made Split Peas and Ham and they turned out great. A nice, smooth texture in surprisingly little time. This time around I soaked them longer, cooked them longer and they were still hard and tasted like hard peas.

After an hour on the stove top I transferred them to the microwave for an additional 20 minutes and, aside from cooking off a lot of water, nothing changed. I tried to look up the cause of this and the only thing I could find was that if you added sugar or an acidic ingredient, such as tomatoes, wine or vinegar, to them that they'll take a comparatively longer time to cook. Is turmeric or onion acidic enough to cause such a problem? Does boiling them for too long before switching to a simmer inevitably render them uncreamable? I even went through the trouble of making my own ghee for this! There's hardly anything to the recipe but water and peas! I'm very disappointed and perhaps the food borne illness god or goddess will punish me for my disastrous results. At least the pita bread we had with it was good.

Tonight we had a pretty heavy dinner and then we started watching Capote and it's all making me very sleepy. We had Burekas, which is essentially what spanakopita would be if it were a calzone (spinach and feta baked in a dough). I think feta (or cottage cheese or ricotta or similar) and cooked spinach is delicious with pretty much anything bready, so this dish is surely a winner. The original recipe yielded a disastrous dough, so we simply co-opted the Calzone one because it's essentially perfect; light and crispy.

I was originally going to make roasted pepper Couscous but didn't because we apparently don't have any. Instead I added some cucumber and tomato and called it a salad. Considering the somewhat mismatched Roasted Pepper and Cucumber Salad it was actually pretty good. It was different. I liked it, but I don't think I'd eat it again. I think I'm torn and everything pales in comparison to the burekas. I probably wouldn't recommend it, I'll leave it that.

I was originally making falafel, but ended up just making Stewed Chick Peas and Carrot. No surprises here, just a way to get more vegetables on the plate. I thought about adding cumin and cinnamon like a recipe I came across, but wasn't feeling particularly adventurous this evening. Instead, just some garlic, chicken stock and one of seemingly hundreds of now not-so fresh bay leaves I'm trying to use up. For dessert we had Ben 'n Jerry's Chunky Monkey, which is probably my favorite ice cream and is definitely not helping me stay awake.

It's the 24th and I'm using the leftover Cannelloni from the Homage to 24 dinner. Coincidence? Yes, entirely. I was looking through the cupboards today to see what dry goods are still left and aside from several kilos of various types of rice and a bunch of dried beans, there was also the cannelloni. Beef Stuffed Cannelloni is the more traditional fare; stuffed with a ground beef mixture and topped with Tomato Sauce. It's the kind of meal that seems so filling and satisfying simply because you end up eating an entire plateful before your stomach can start sending signals to your brain that you're full. I made the sauce how I would normally make it (with sun-dried tomatoes for sweetness and body) but other than that the recipe is identical to the one I used for the Calzones so it need not be repeated.

Shannon wanted cauliflower with Kraft golden Italian salad dressing. I personally think Italian dressing is gross, but made 3 attempts at making it from the ingredient list on the bottle (several different combinations involving water, vinegars, concentrated lemon juice, oils, garlic powder, minced onion and sugar in place of high fructose corn syrup) but they were all terrible. To me, terrible meant strikingly similar to the real thing, but Shannon ended up going to buy some of the commercially prepared stuff because to her, terrible meant terrible. I passed on the cauliflower entirely in spite of the whole ordeal because I'm a big baby.

The one dish dinner thing doesn't really do it for me and even though I'm full, I still feel like I'm lacking something. Luckily I'm making good use of pantry items and have several things thawing in the fridge so the next couple of days will be full of far more interesting fare, including another potentially disastrous attempt at Asian cuisine.

Along with the Moose Steaks from Last Night, my mom also brought a large anonymous fresh frozen fish. After eating it I'm still not quite sure what it was. Sturgeon? Steelhead trout? Perch? It's all the same to me. I am quite happy about this fish because it's the first time I've made Grilled Fish without it falling apart or otherwise disassembling itself and burning to death.

I am disappointed in this fish because it had a distinctive lake water taste that was exceptionally unappealing. Also, I cut it into steaks myself and I don't really have knives sharp enough to do so without butchering the meat. Shannon said half of hers was delicious and the other half had a fishy taste to it. Strangely enough, I'm thinking that if I had overcooked it and dried it out more it would have been more palatable. I microwaved it for several minutes in an attempt to do this, but it doesn't seem to have the same drying out effect that a barbecue does.

I made a quick White Bean Cucumber Salad, which would've been fine; it's a simple recipe, but I goofed. See, in the process of making the garlic and coarse salt into a paste, I found it necessary to indiscriminately continue adding salt to make more paste, regardless of how salty salt happens to be. So my first bite involved a lot of wincing and lip puckering, my second bite involved some cursing and the third bite landed the whole plate in the garbage. This shouldn't turn you off of the recipe itself, which would be fine if it weren't so salty, since it's just a simple lemon and olive oil dressing. This would be great on its own with some grape tomatoes and chunked tuna added in. I also had some of the Woodland Wild Rice from last night because I made so much of it and fish and rice are ingrained in my head as a perfect combination from low-fat advertising.

Let me start by saying that this whole meal was pleasantly surprising. When Mom Came to Visit she brought along some moose steaks with her. She has a staff of many natives who hunt them and bring her meat for free, so it's really hard to say no. I hadn't had moose meat since I was a kid, but I've become partial to gamey flavors as I've grown older, so I decided to give it another go. I wasn't going to do anything crazy with it so I could actually taste the flavor of the meat and distinguish any textural differences or whatever. The simply titled Browned Moose Steaks were fantastic! The meat was so tender! That could have something to do with me pounding it silly with a mallet and cooking it in butter, but it still caught me off guard. The texture was more pull-apart grainy than buttery, which I really enjoyed. Shannon wasn't into the game taste, but otherwise this was awesome. I certainly don't mind eating the leftovers. I should've had mousse for dessert, now that I think about it.

To get the basic and bland side dish out of the side, I made Corn and Walnuts. It's exactly what it sounds like; corn cooked with walnuts. I liked it because I like corn and walnuts, but don't expect any surprises. The original recipe (yes, there was an original recipe) called for black walnut oil which may have added a whole new dimension, or simply more walnut flavor. I've never seen nor heard of black walnut oil before, so I'm kind of curious now. I'm becoming painfully aware of my branching demand for once-unnecessary food items and utensils. I mean, I now have 10 different types of salt and 8 different types of vinegar (and I can't justify parting with any of them). I don't believe I'll be a true and complete food snob until I end up with cookware more expensive than our car or start buying truffles off EBay, but I can see that day coming.

Bannock. I don't think I've ever had bannock that wasn't cooked over a camp fire and it's just not as good on the stove top. However, it's essentially fried bread, so it's hard to really go wrong. Since it is so simple you can add basically anything to lean more towards the savory or sweet. Add some cinnamon, raisins and honey and you've got a dessert biscuit. Add some rosemary and/or thyme and spread on some garlic butter and you've got a good stew accompaniment and so on. Crispy and chewy and loaded with empty calories like every good bread is.

Things kept getting better with the Autumn Baked Butternut Squash. I could've sworn I made something similar to this before but could not find it in the database. Butternut squash is naturally sweet and mixed with apples, pecans and brown sugar this might as well be a dessert as a side dish. I think it's nice presentation and it's very easy to make, just time consuming for the whole roasting process. It's absolutely delicious though and I highly recommend it.

Finally, something titled Woodland Wild Rice. I find it hard to believe that canned beans and mushrooms are found in the wild, but aside from that, I quite liked this dish. I also especially like that I'm through with the four for a dollar canned mushrooms I picked up eons ago; never again. This is a super easy way to cram in some vegetables, however sodium laden, without feeling like you're eating vegetables. The flavor of chicken stock and wild rice masks any sort of canned vegetable flavor which I am incredibly thankful for.